


The Elephant Man in the Room

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: reel_torchwood, Episode: s02e10 From Out of the Rain, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a restless night for Jack, and therefore for Ianto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elephant Man in the Room

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/reel_torchwood/profile)[**reel_torchwood**](http://community.livejournal.com/reel_torchwood/) Challenge, Round 2. One technical aspect of this story will make more sense if you have seen _From Out of the Rain_.
> 
> Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

It's a restless night for Jack. He isn't as used to this now as he once was, and this disturbs him even more than the dark undercurrent that woke him and sent him from the comfort of his bed and its other occupant.

It's been a long time since Jack has had a night like this. He wonders if that is because of the new sheets Ianto insisted on requisitioning for the bed in his hole. They are both comfortable and practical, and have a thread count that he can never remember, but that Ianto touts whenever the occasion seems appropriate. They really do feel good.

And so does Ianto. Between the sheets.

Jack always has liked that word game, and those who have known him over the decades have nearly always called him childish for it, with various shadings of indulgence and annoyance. He wonders now why he can't find his failsafe leer; the one that always gets him into or out of trouble when that's what he needs most. Come to think of it, that leer hasn't felt as natural as it once did when thinking about Ianto between the sheets.

He shakes himself, and recognises the stalling for what it is. He steels himself and pads to the secure archive that houses the items that Ianto doesn't know about. The ones that he and Gwen found a fortnight ago and that made him shudder and Gwen wince. They agreed with a single, silent look between them to keep it from Ianto, even if they had to do their best work to do it.

He has to check this, even though every part of him shudders in revulsion at the thought. He knows there hasn't been an incident yet, but feels the pull of it, knows that something looms and calculates. It's too similar to what he doesn't want to know when he dies. He checks the camera array along the back wall – film, slaves, controls – and turns everything on. He puts on the gloves – Ianto would insist, as Tosh would have – and retrieves the first bit of film from its can. He threads it through the projector he squirreled away three days ago and sits back. Before he can let himself feel, he clicks the remote.

Two hours and fifteen canisters later, and twenty-five ghosts captured and destroyed on still film, Jack is watching his old troupe onscreen. This film is not infected with the Night Travellers. He remembers when it was made, and watches the twins with a nostalgic fondness that distracts him, but not enough. He goes through the bearded lady – she was a hell of a lay, but then that was true of nearly all the Natamazians he's met – and the contortionist – gorgeous boy whose dewy appearance masked three centuries of life – before he was gazing at himself with none of his usual enthusiasm.

He is slitting his own throat in the evening special showings into which women and "people of sensitive dispositions" were genuinely not allowed when he hears an intake of breath.

"How can you just sit and watch this?"

"Gotta check for Night Travellers." Jack keeps his eyes glued to the screen. "Besides, I lived it, so what's the problem?"

"How often did you have to do this?" Ianto has moved closer and is now standing ten and a half inches from Jack's right shoulder.

"You're blocking two of the cameras."

"Oh. Erm, I'll just...."

Jack sighs. "You might as well go get another chair."

"Okay, but you should know I've, er, disabled the lock."

"I figured," says Jack, pointedly, though he feels a smile threatening the corners of his mouth.

"And you didn't have another one in here for Gwen because...?"

"Would've made you suspicious." Jack watches himself struggle back to life.

"I'll ... be right back."

Jack barely notices as Ianto leaves and returns. He is too busy watching himself argue with the showman.

"Creative differences?" Ianto settles his stool next to Jack, an arrangement that will block a camera.

"Ianto!" Jack glares at him and points. "I said 'chair'!"

"Oh. Sorry, I'll just go and—"

"Never mind! Just – come here!" On an impulse he doesn't really want to understand, Jack yanks Ianto down onto his lap.

"Oof!"

"Comfy?"

"Uh—"

"Good! Now shut up and watch!" Jack's arm tightens involuntarily around Ianto's waist.

Ianto has little choice but to grasp Jack's encircling arm as he is nearly thrown off balance. He also pries a few fingers from a too-firm hold on his left kidney.

"Sorry." Jack adjusts his grip to one he knows Ianto likes.

They watch the showman backhand the orphan he'd bought to use as an assistant and beat the dog-faced boy for trying to kiss the bearded lady in front of the camera.

Ianto's breath catches, and Jack remembers one of the reasons he and Gwen wanted to keep Ianto from seeing any of these films. "Who shot this?" Ianto asks, before Jack can move.

"An operative from Torchwood House." Jack, having tried for 'distant', is dismayed to hear 'wistful', instead.

"Good friend?"

"Boyfriend."

"Came to a bad end?"

Jack squeezes Ianto with a little too much feeling. "You don't want to know."

And then Jack is on the screen again, shooting himself in the head and coming back, then resetting and shooting himself in the heart, slitting his throat, shooting himself up through the chin, coming back. He remembers what comes next. "This'll be hard." He squeezes Ianto's waist.

The showman is yelling at a newly resurrected, disorientated Jack – shaking him, hitting him. The man looks as though he's about to beat Jack when he stops, fist raised, and looks at the camera, crazed with rage. It takes a few moments, but the man's face changes and he lowers his fist and says something at Jack before turning on his heel and leaving.

"What happened there?"

"He wanted an extra show for a VIP guest. I wasn't coming back fast enough."

"You always take longer when you've been killed a lot."

Something in the balm of Ianto's voice threatens to break Jack. "Yeah."

"Jesus, Jack..."

Jack can't quite help a smile at the century-old joke. "Not quite."

But Ianto isn't laughing.

They watch Jack being killed by a party of eight young men taking their turns running him through with their swords. They are good at avoiding the vital organs until the last one is ushered through to pierce the heart.

Only, he doesn't do it fast. He takes his time and chats with his friends as they hold Jack up and he pushes the blade, inch by inch, between Jack's ribs and through his heart.

The film peters out as Jack collapses, his pain and 'Why?' captured for nearly a century on fragile celluloid.

Jack becomes aware that Ianto's arm is now around his shoulders.

"Was – was that the 'extra show for the VIP guest'?"

"Yeah." Jack doesn't know why that was so hard to watch. He does know that he'd run if Ianto weren't sitting on him. He shifts.

"How c-could they treat you like that?" Ianto's voice is quieter than Jack had expected, and not as calm.

Jack shrugs. "They paid for it."

"You're a human being, not a fucking thing!"

Jack would dump Ianto off his lap, were it not for the fact that he is finding that physical contact as necessary as it is stifling. "Sounds like a new take on an old line."

Ianto's face reddens and he bolts from Jack, turning at last with hands on hips. "They treated you as badly as the Elephant Man. Worse! They didn't kill him."

"No, they didn't. But they abused him badly. He told me of it one night."

"You knew John Merrick..."

"Joseph, actually. And yes, I did. And not nearly long enough."

"Did you, erm, well, was he ... more than a friend?"

"He could have been, if I'd known him longer." Jack switches off the projector and gets up to put the light on. He doesn't look at Ianto.

"Tell me about him."

Jack sighs in defeat. "He was gentle, lonely. He wanted to find a blind woman so she wouldn't be repelled by his appearance."

"So he wasn't interested in you ... like that."

Jack snorts. "Honey, everyone's interested in me 'like that'!"

"Rhys isn't. Gloria at the coffee shop isn't. Andy Davidson definitely isn't. The milkman isn't. The Prime Minister isn't. The postman—"

"Okay, okay!" Jack reaches for the film.

"Gloves!"

"Oh, yeah...." Gloves donned, Jack puts the film back into its canister.

Ianto reaches into a pocket and pulls out a tube of lube. He doesn't bat an eye as he puts it back and tries another with the same result. On the third pocket, when he pulls out the vial of retcon tablets, he rolls his eyes and fixes Jack with a look. "Pen?"

Jack wiggles the marker at him before writing on the archive label on the can.

"Bastard!"

"Says the man using my coat as a dressing gown."

"You like it on me."

"And you just – do unspeakable things to it."

Ianto pulls the coat around him.

"Especially when you're naked in it."

"John – Joseph Merrick, remember?"

Jack sighs. "He was strictly interested in the ladies."

"So was I, 'til I met you."

Jack replaces the canister in its spot. He has to move past Ianto to do it, and he bites his tongue the whole time. He touches Ianto's face, then, and opens his mouth, and stops himself. It's an old argument. When Ianto doesn't melt into his arms, Jack knows that there's something else.

A moment hangs between them.

"I can't imagine what that was like for you." Ianto is as quiet as a lover.

Jack should be used to this with Ianto, but he isn't. He moves away and half-fakes examining the film canisters. "It wasn't so bad. Not for me. I had a manager and a valuable talent. I was lucky."

"You're only human."

"Am I?" Jack turns to Ianto. "How do you know?"

"Blood tests, DNA, body scans..." Ianto's eyes flick down to Jack's groin. "Anatomy."

"I am a male with a womb."

"Lots of us get body modifications."

"How do you know it isn't natural for me?"

"I ... don't."

"See? Perhaps your compassion is misplaced." The sound of it makes Jack feel sick, as though his heart might go. He turns back to the film cans. He'd really like a good Weevil hunt right now, or a Rift alarm. But of course the Hub is silent. Even the air climate system and water tower are in simultaneous off cycles, and it's half-three, the deadest part of the night with all its eerie quiet.

"I don't care what you are."

Jack's head whips around, because Ianto is trembling.

"I don't give a fuck what you are, or what you call yourself. Even murderers get better treatment than that. Even the rats in our lab, now that Owen's gone. There was a reason they outlawed side shows and slavery." Ianto licks his lips and breathes as if to steady himself. "I don't care what you are."

Jack almost doesn't say what he must. But then he fixes Ianto with his eyes. "You should." He pours all the power and venom of his deformity into it. He sees Ianto recoil. He sees Ianto step back. He sees Ianto flee from the room. He sees Ianto—

Ianto moves quick and deadly as lightning and kisses Jack brutally on the mouth. "I know. Too fucking bad!" He steps back. "And if you aren't a human being, or if it's some sort of faux-pas to call you that, just tell me, and I'll stop."

Jack doesn't know he's reeling until Ianto grabs his arm.

"And by the way, when you have bad dreams, I hear you, so you might want to just talk to me sometimes and get back to sleep so you don't faint on the job."

Jack finds himself back in his chair.

Ianto is standing over him, hands on hips, oblivious to the way the coat is exposing his nakedness. He is not hard, at all.

That brings Jack's attention back to a focal point. "You're upset."

"Who wouldn't be, looking at that?" Ianto runs a hand down the back of his head and looks away.

"Me, for one."

Ianto's eyes whip back to Jack's. "I don't believe that for a second."

"What's eating you, Ianto? It's just a piece of film."

"I believe that even less."

"You never did tell me what bothered you so much about the Night Travellers."

Ianto sighs and pulls the coat closed around himself. There is a look of defeat in his eyes that makes Jack ache. "I didn't do the best job with them." He moves away and leans on the projector table, weariness showing around puffy eyes.

The anger building up inside Jack gets thrown off centre.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you. I'll just ... see about fixing the lock." Ianto pads towards the door.

Jack wants more than anything for Ianto to just leave. He would really like it if Ianto had never found the room at all. He hates talking about dying, especially his own. More than Ianto will ever know, he hates his freakishness. He hates how scared he is all the time, and how he can never hide or have a bit of grace. He'll never tell Ianto how much he almost got to like being buried for so long, even though it hurt. That it was like being held in a steady embrace.

Before he can think, Jack is at the door, turning Ianto around and into his arms. He gasps a little when Ianto's arms tighten around him after too long a moment. "I am human." He whispers because he's shaky.

"You don't sound so sure."

Jack hates it when Ianto gets him like that. A squadron of evasions roar through his mind. "I'm not."

"Owen and Tosh made a fair bit of progress on improving the bio-scanner's accuracy before they died." Ianto's offer is soft, gentle, excruciating.

"It won't find what's wrong with me." Jack cradles the back of Ianto's head to forestall him. "I'm as human as anyone can be in the fifty-first century."

"I still don't care what you are." But Ianto's voice, honey against Jack's ear, betrays just that tiniest touch of relief.

"Yes you do."

Ianto pulls back just enough to press his forehead to Jack's. "Not in any way that really matters. The human part just makes things a little easier, is all."

"Like it would if I were female?"

"You'd make a gorgeous woman."

"Like you did?"

Ianto blushes. "Did you prefer me like that?"

Jack has thought about this, and he doesn't know why. "No. I enjoyed the change while it lasted, but I was relieved when it was over."

"So was I!"

Jack chuckles. "So wouldn't it be easier for you if I was a girl? You keep saying you're straight..."

Ianto searches Jack's eyes. "It ... would be easier to take you home to the family, but that's ... bollocks." He pulls away, running his hand down the back of his head, again. "I fell for you when you fell on me. I'm fucking smitten, and I'd probably want you even if you had tentacles and a beak. Can't believe I just said that...."

Something inside Jack warms almost to breaking point. He moves carefully to Ianto and encircles his waist, drawing him into a loose embrace. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

Ianto looks up and catches Jack's eyes in a soft lock. "Here's where I'd say something about having to kill you."

"It's kind of what I expect."

"Except I hate it when you die."

Jack uses his smile and breath to hide his pang. He brings Ianto a little closer. "Wanna know a secret?"

Ianto swallows.

"So do I." It's the first time he's admitted it to anyone, and it is hard almost beyond bearing.

"Then—" Ianto swallows again and his throat works for a moment. "Promise me that you'll never be a side show attraction again unless you're doing undercover work."

"I—" Jack stops himself, caught up short. "Never? God, do you know how much money that would cost me?"

But Ianto's eyes start to lose their lustre, and Jack feels a piece of himself start to die in a different, more permanent way.

"I promise."

Ianto kisses Jack as if he knows exactly how much that promise cost.

Jack hesitates before letting his guard down enough to sink deeply into it. He doesn't want to let people in this much. That means memory, and he's so scared of that. And yet he opens himself deeper with every kiss, every promise, and he doesn't want to stop. "Let's get out of here," he breathes into Ianto's mouth. "I'm sick of movies."

"So'm I." Ianto backs Jack to the wall and reaches past him to flip the master switch.

Jack can feel Ianto's burgeoning hardness and pulls him closer.

"Bed!"

The command sends sparks to Jack's groin and they stumble out the door—

"Shit!" Ianto breaks the kiss. "Fucking lock!"

"It'll wait." Jack pulls Ianto with him, and they kiss and fumble and grope their way to his hole, stripping clothes along the way, and drop onto his bed, hard and aching.

And then Ianto pushes up, panting, and looks down at Jack. "Jack? Do you have ovaries?"

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
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End file.
